Feathered Indians

Video Lesson

Editor’s notes

Tyler Childers is one of the very best new country artists I’ve heard in the past few years - and this opening track (“Feathered Indians”) from his album Purgatory is a terrifically fun one to play. My tutorial here will teach you how to play it: intro riff, chords, and strumming. I’ll show it all, with a very thorough walkthrough of the intro riff (which can be a bit difficult at first). Even if you don’t pick up your guitar to play this song, I recommend giving Tyler Childers a listen! My other favorites by him include Whitehouse Road and Lady May (I have lessons for both).

Lyrics w/ chords

Capo 5th fret.

See page 1 of my sheet music for the lyrics, chords, and intro tab.

Capo 5th fret!

Tyler Childers plays this song with a capo on the 5th fret - and I do too in my video lesson. As always, you can follow the tabs and chords and play the song by yourself just fine without a capo - but you’ll be in a different key from the source recording. I’ll also note, that a capo makes this song easier to play - in that the fret width becomes a bit thinner up around the 5th fret, making some of your pinky stretches easier.

How to play the chords

You’ll need these four chords for this song:

E –––2–––––––3–––2–––
B –––3–––2–––3–––3–––
G –––2–––2–––0–––4–––
D –––0–––2–––0–––4–––
A –––––––0–––2–––2–––
E –––––––––––3–––––––
     D   A   G   Bm

For the A-major, play it like this during the intro riff. This will free up your ring finger (left hand) to play the necessary flourish note.

E –––––––
B –––2–––  <--  Use index finger
G –––2–––  <--  to barre the 2nd fret
D –––2–––  <--  on these 3 strings
A –––0–––
E –––––––
     A

Intro riff

First, understand the underlying structure:

See my sheet music for the intro tab.

Then, add these flourish notes. If you’re able, keep that strumming hand moving steadily, adding in the other strings as you please.

See my sheet music for tab with finger diagrams.

Strumming pattern

To start with, use all down strums - and try to give the 2nd and 4th beats an emphasis or accent.

1 + 2 + 3 + 4 +
D   D   D   D  
    >       >

If you want to flesh it out a bit, try this (down, down, down-up-down-up).

1 + 2 + 3 + 4 +
D   D   D U D U
    >       >

Chord progressions

See my sheet music for the chord progression diagrams.